From left, SeatGeek, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jack Groetzinger, Jam Productions LLC Chief Executive Officer and President Jerry Mickelson, and The James Madison Institute Senior Vice President Sal Nuzzo, appear to testify before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to examine promoting competition and protecting consumers in live entertainment on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday held a hearing looking into entertainment giant Live Nation's role in the botched pre-sales process for Taylor Swift's Eras tour. A combination of website outages, high fees, and long wait times caused a backlash among customers who were already frustrated with the company's market dominance.
"To have a strong capitalist system, you have to have competition. You can't have too much consolidation — something that, unfortunately for this country, as an ode to Taylor Swift, I will say, we know 'all too well," said Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
While T-Swizzle herself was not in attendance, a cross-section of musical artists, small venue owners, rival ticket companies, and legal experts offered their perspective. Joe Berchtold, president and CFO of Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation Entertainment, also used the occasion to once again apologize for the issues.
"As we said after the on-sale, and I reiterate today: We apologize to the fans. We apologize to Ms. Swift. We need to do better and we will do better," he said.
However, Berchtold maintained that Live Nation's dominant position in the market was not responsible for the mishaps surrounding Swift's Eras tour. Instead he pointed the finger at a bot attack that caused massive inflow of traffic to the Ticketmaster website.
“While the bots failed to penetrate our systems or acquire any tickets, the attack required us to slow down and even pause our sales,” Berchtold said in a prepared statement. He added that companies such as Ticketmaster are currently in an "arms race" with bots, scalpers, and cyber criminals trying to buy tickets for resale.
Jerry Mickelson, CEO and president at Jam Productions, a venue-owner in Chicago, rejected this explanation. "You can't blame bots for what happened to Taylor Swift. There's more to that story that you're not hearing," he said.
Jack Groetzinger, CEO and founder of rival ticket company SeatGeek, blamed the fact that Live Nation essentially has a monopoly on ticket sales for live events.
"Live Nation controls the most popular entertainers in the world, routes most of the large tours, operates the ticketing systems, and even owns many of the venues," he said. "This power over the entire live entertainment industry allows Live Nation to maintain its monopolistic influence over the primary ticketing market."
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle tended to agree with this assessment, and several floated the idea of the Department of Justice pursuing an antitrust lawsuit.
“I want to congratulate and thank you for an absolutely stunning achievement: You have brought together Republicans and Democrats in an absolutely unified cause,” said Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal to Berchtold.
Updated: Added missing citation for the quote in the second paragraph.
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global, breaks down September’s CPI print and inflation trends, explaining what it means for markets.
A big-screen adaptation of the anime “Chainsaw Man” has topped the North American box office, beating a Springsteen biopic and “Black Phone 2.” The movie earned $17.25 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend. “Black Phone 2” fell to second place with $13 million. Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million, respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on the manga series about a demon hunter. It's another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released a “Demon Slayer” film last month that debuted to a record $70 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration says flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility. The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports on Sunday morning soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. The hold on planes taking off for LAX lasted an hour and 45 minutes and didn't appear to cause continued problems. The FAA said staffing shortages also delayed planes headed to Washington, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
Boeing workers at three Midwest plants where military aircraft and weapons are developed have voted to reject the company’s latest contract offer and to continue a strike that started almost three months ago. The strike by about 3,200 machinists at the plants in the Missouri cities of St. Louis and St. Charles, and in Mascoutah, Illinois, is smaller in scale than a walkout last year by 33,000 Boeing workers who assemble commercial jetliners. The president of the International Association of Machinists says Sunday's outcome shows Boeing hasn't adequately addressed wages and retirement benefits. Boeing says Sunday's vote was close with 51% of union members opposing the revised offer.
